Furniture of this type is known in which the upright-forming means comprise four supporting posts respectively connecting the four corners of the top shelf to the four corners of the bottom shelf. In furniture of this type, the wall means of the closed face are constituted by a sheet which is conventionally made out of hardboard type material. To receive the sheet, each of the two support posts that are disposed at respective ends of the closed face includes a vertical groove in which one end of the sheet can be received. The posts are generally square in overall section.
It is common to seek to provide the piece of furniture with more than one closed face. Under such circumstances, the posts have at least two vertical grooves formed in two perpendicular sides and co-operating respectively with the walls of two perpendicular closed faces.
To facilitate manufacture, such vertical grooves are generally formed in the middle region of the supporting posts which are themselves conventionally made out of plastics material by molding or blow molding. The walls that are to be received in the grooves of the supporting posts cannot extend flush with the outside faces of the posts, but are slightly offset inwards from said faces. Because of manufacturing constraints concerning posts, it is practically impossible to make the grooves in such a manner as to enable the walls to extend flush with the posts. The resulting offset is unattractive in appearance and spoils the overall impression of solidity of the assembled piece of furniture.
It should also be observed that this type of furniture is commonly sold in kit form, i.e. in component parts which must be assembled together by the purchaser. The piece of furniture must therefore be easily transportable in the unassembled state, which means that the number of parts must be as small as possible and the packaging of said parts prior to the piece of furniture being assembled must be capable of being as compact as possible. It is also necessary to observe that it is desirable for the parts to be relatively lightweight without that spoiling the overall solidity of the piece of furniture.
The piece of furniture must also be very easy to assemble, which is another reason for minimizing the number of component parts.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,493,281 discloses a piece of furniture whose sides are single pieces of plastics material, each comprising one flank and two posts. Assembly is simplified thereby, however the packaging of that piece of furniture prior to assembly cannot be very compact.